Try another car. Just grab one of the free ones parked on the sides of streets and the cops should make less fuss. Also chicken suit is overused so people get annoyed by it. Try a tree suit. It also doubles as camouflage.

They call it "easy mode" for a reason. But yeah they should re-balance it because as it stands, playing on harder difficulties just isn't rewarding enough. Even if you do really well with all your low stats no-one really gives any credit for it.

They should also just remove some of the higher difficulties. For example, ever tried playing with the starting trait "Harlequin ichthyosis"? ******* impossible...